Death melted away as the first one arrived.
“Back up slowly, then lay a side track to loop back to the one we came in on.”
“You mean we’ve beaten him?”
“He’s not around to argue with so I’ll call the draw myself. Let’s get out of here.”
The Babboon backed up and began the maneuver.
As they approached the junction a fog blew before them. Donnerjack switched on the headlamp and they slowed. The fog swirled and darkened. Then it coalesced into a great, dark, towering, winged figure. Suddenly, blazing multitudes of stars shone through it and its face at once seemed too dark and too bright to look upon. Moire filled the air between them as it extended its arms.
“No. It is for me to call tie or truce,” Death’s voice came.
He seemed to lean forward then, beginning to envelop them.
Donnerjack turned a dial on the black box all the way up, hit the fire blossom control, snapped the blades, blew the whistle, and cried, “Hit him with all the remaining attractors and get us back onto the track!”
There was a moment of absolute blackness, and Donnerjack felt them switching tracks. They advanced slowly and the air began to clear.
A mile or so later they saw a moving light ahead and Donnerjack slowed for it. It proved to be a lantern in the hands of an old man wearing bib overalls, an engineer’s cap, and a red bandanna.
Donnerjack halted, leaned out.
“What is it?” he asked.
The man was grinning, an everyday-seeming expression for him.
“I’ve decided to call it a draw,” he said.
“Then you grant my petition?”
“Your request was that I think about it.”
“Well? Will you?”
“Take your brass monkey and get out of here. I told you I never make promises.”
The man and his lantern vanished.
“Do as he said,” said Donnerjack. “Back to our station and its yard.”
“And after that? Will you have more use for me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then in the meantime may I have my freedom, to tour Virtu?”
“Certainly. You’ve served me well.”
“Thanks. It was good to be part of a legend.”
* * *
Defiantly, Donnerjack let the child play upon the Great Stage—its locale shifting every fifteen minutes to keep his attention—as he fortified his castle with projectors of the field Death had told him he could slip through, given time. His next order of business was to multiply the defenses, while he worked on varying and strengthening the field itself. Then, as Duncan and Angus installed new projectors with the assistance of the robots, Donnerjack continued to modify the personal fields in his son’s bracelet, succumbing to idea after idea concerning it. He also had his memories and personality chip-recorded with an AI overlay.
Despite his precautions, he felt it prudent to drag his heels on the design of Death’s palace. He felt certain that Death would hold off on any vindictive response to their latest encounter at least until the design was complete. In the meantime, he amused himself in seeing how many hiding places and entrances and exits he could insinuate into the design for the strange laborers to create unthinking, hopefully to slip by Death’s casual surveillance of the plans.
“When I die,” he said to Dack, “bury me next to Ayradyss and tell no one of my passing. Run this place for me. Keep Duncan and Angus for human contacts as well as for their work, eventually promoting them to caretakers. Give them periodic raises to keep them happy. Take care of my son. Try to figure what is best for the boy. Keep him healthy and well fed. See that he learns to read and write and do numbers.”
“I hope, sir,” Dack stated, “that this is not an anticipation of anything imminent.”
“So do I,” said Donnerjack, “but these instructions had to be given sooner or later, and I decided that sooner was better.”
He sat up that night on the third floor, near to the place of heaviest manifestation. He had with him a bottle of Laphroaig Scotch Whisky and a glass.
Along about midnight it seemed that he heard a faint rattling of chains. He waited a few moments to be sure. Then it came again.
“Ghost? That is you, isn’t it?” he called.
“Aye, laird. ‘Tis.”
“Have you a moment before you make your rounds?”
“Certainly, laird. You’ve been away?”
“Aye.”
“Before we talk may I ask what ‘tis you’re drinkin’?”
“Good Scotch whisky. Wish I could offer you some.”
“Ah! ‘Twould be good to be drunk again. But there is truth in some of the old stories.”
“What do you mean?”
“Pour this old soldier a libation. I get some pleasure out of the fumes.
If you could slop a little into that ashtray I could be takin’ in the aura while we talk.”
“Done, my friend,” said Donnerjack, pouring. “By the by, I’ll never know whether this was all a funny dream. I had a lot tonight.”
“I’ll try to remember to remind you,” said the ghost, making a sniffing noise. “Ah! That’s good stuff!”
“I lost my wife recently, you may know.”
“Ach! My condolences.”
“Thanks. I was wondering…”
“What, laird?”
“I was wondering whether you might have encountered her spirit in some ghostly place.”
The other shook his head. “I canna say. Though that proves nothin’. Sometimes they wander far afield, confused, for a time. Other occasions, they may be off to some spiritual reward I’m not eligible for. Wish I could know that kinda rest. This drink’s a good substitute, though.”
Donnerjack glanced at the ashtray and wondered how it could have become half-empty so quickly.
“Well, thank you. I’d be grateful for any news of her you come across.”
“I’ll do what I can, laird.” Another sniff, and for the first time Donnerjack saw the specter smile. “We’ll do this again one night?”
“Sure thing. Many, I’ve a feeling.”
A few sniffs later and the tray was empty. The ghost rattled his chains and staggered off.
Donnerjack took another drink and staggered off himself.
The following day, Donnerjack talked to Reese Jordan. He told him the story of his recent visit to Virtu. There was a long pause, then, “Oddly, I believe most of what you say,” Reese said, “though your personification of Death troubles me. You were always a good hands-on man, with a rule of thumb for just about everything. I think that everything you’ve described is within theory. I’ve decided to take your notes and Bansa’s, together with my own conjecture, and try to approximate a unified field.”
“Apart from the pure beauty of it, I’d love to tie together the things I’ve been doing with more understanding. Too bad old Warren isn’t around to help.”
“Yes, that would be like the old days.”
“Tell me, can you get out of bed?”
“Oh, yes, they’re walking me every day—a little farther each time. I’ll tell you right now, I’m better than I was the last time something came up.”
“Great. Then let’s talk once a week, whether or not we’ve made progress.”
“Okay. It’s good to have a colleague again.”
TWO
They worked together for the better part of three months, during which time—try as he might not to—Donnerjack completed the design of Death’s palace. The uniform theory was further along and almost completely in Jordan’s hands by that time. Donnerjack had done the best he could for the time available on his projects, and he had carried his bracelet work to another stage, an order of magnitude more powerful than it had been. He played with his son every afternoon in Virtu’s surroundings, on and off of the Great Stage.
The day finally came when he saw a moire flash by the window. He checked his fields, then increased their intensity. Several hours p
assed uneventfully, then he noticed that a violet aura had come into being about each projector he could see from his office window.
He moved to his main control and intensified the fields. In crossing the room he glanced at his computer screen. It was displaying a skull.
“Hm. Under attack. All right,” he said.
Using a set of receivers on the roof, he attempted to triangulate for the source of the energy. Nothing. It was just there. He raised the intensity again and moved to the screen.
“Are you just decoration, or do you want to talk?” he asked.
There was no reply.
“If you make it through, give me a shot at you hand to hand. I’m willing to try dismembering you.”
The figure on the screen remained unchanging.
“All right. Your fields against mine,” he said. “Let me know when you want to call it a day.”
The projectors suddenly flared, as if the aurora borealis walked among them. He turned the power all the way up.
The projectors began to whine.
“Trying to burn them out, are you? Wait till I kick in the backups.”
All that day and much of the night the duel went on. Then abruptly, about dawn, the attack let up. Donnerjack heard a chuckle and glanced at the screen. The skull slowly faded.
“Does that mean he found a flaw?” Donnerjack wondered aloud. “Or is it just a part of the war of nerves?”
He lowered the fields. They would all have to be reset now, of course. And he wondered how much his opponent had learned during the long assault.
Propping his feet on his desk he leaned back in his reclining chair and slept. And that was how Dack found him later, save that his heart had stopped beating and he no longer breathed.
John D’Arcy Donnerjack was laid to rest beside his beloved Ayradyss. It rained that day and somewhere in the mountains the piper played. For three nights the banshee howled. When Reese Jordan called later he was told that Donnerjack was traveling.
Dack had suddenly to become expert on the care and feeding of young children. He consulted all of the recipes for everything that had been given to the boy and he bathed him several times a day, changing him when necessary. Under his ministrations, John D’Arcy Donnerjack, Junior gained weight, smiled occasionally, and yelled regularly. The medbot was able to take care of all his childhood diseases and immunizations. Every day Dack left him to play on the Great Stage, where he beheld many wonders but fortunately was immune to their touch.
The months rolled on, as did the seasons. Calls for Donnerjack grew fewer and fewer, as it seemed he was always traveling. Dack spoke with the child every day, and when the boy began responding he doubled his efforts.
A number of times Dack was certain he overheard the boy babbling to someone else. Exploring, he found him in the company of a dog— possibly—which looked to have been fathered by a junk heap. There was something terribly intimidating about it, though he could not say what it was. One time, there was nothing there but a beautiful black butterfly of a sort he had never seen before. He could understand a child’s talking to something that had interested him, but it had sounded like a two-sided conversation. Later, it was a long shimmering snake with scales like beaten copper with whom he found him. Later still, a monkeylike creature. He shrugged his plastic and metal shoulders. They could do the boy no physical harm. And talking, he knew, was good for him at this point.
* * *
“Ab’nana, ah! Mama! Ab’nana! ‘Nana!” The tone was querulous, the words understandable only to a patiently loving ear, and the request immediately granted.
“Very well, have some banana. Try not to get it all over yourself, monkey-face.”
Lydia Hazzard said this last with a great deal of affection, if not with a great deal of hope. She looked up from her reader, watching absently to see how much of the banana the baby actually got into her mouth.
“Not bad, monkey-face,” she said, mopping up bits of squashed banana from chubby fingers, round cheeks, and flaxen hair. “How did you manage to get banana into your hair?”
“Ah-ba-ba, ma-ma-ma.” The baby waved her fists in the air, chortling happily.
“More banana?”
“Pfftt…”
“Here, crawl around in your playpen and terrorize your toys so Mama can study for class. All right?”
“Up!” Said very distinctly and followed by a wail. At times like this Lydia wondered why she had waited so excitedly for the baby to start talking. It was like acquiring a drill sergeant—all that the baby seemed to know were orders and insults. But then she smiled…
Lydia reached into the playpen and hefted Alice into her lap. Becoming a mother at eighteen hadn’t been precisely in her plans, but she was intoxicated by little Alice as she had been by only one other person in her life—Alice’s father, Wolfer Martin D’Ambry.
The doctors attending her confinement (she had come out of Virtu just as the contractions grew regular) had been amazed that she had woken from her coma with a full awareness of her condition. They had expected to meet with shock, horror, disbelief—anything but her calm acceptance that she was having a baby. Her knowledge of Lamaze techniques had astonished them equally, but with Carla insisting that Lydia be permitted to have her baby any damn way she wanted to thank you and hadn’t the doctors and authorities at the facility messed things up enough, where did they get the gall to try and take charge—Lydia had been alert to see her daughter into the world.
Holding her to her breast, she had named her Alice, just as she and Ambry had decided during those long evenings in their cottage on the rocky shore in Virtu. She had feigned exhaustion (actually, it wasn’t much of a feint) to avoid having to discuss what exactly had happened during the ten months or so that they had lost her signal. When she awoke, her parents had taken her and Alice home, refused all calls, and were adjusting rather well to having not only their daughter returned but a granddaughter as well.
The official decision was that Alice was parthenogenetically conceived, the initial trigger being a psychosomatic conversion of Lydia’s “romantic” involvement in Virtu. Lydia knew otherwise. The baby was as much Wolfer Martin D’Ambry’s as she was Lydia’s, even if the DNA was identical to Lydia’s. She saw no reason to argue about it, however, as she had sworn to tell no one—not even her parents—about her virtual husband.
The Hazzards’ fortune, influence, and the threat of a considerable lawsuit against the virtual vacation outfit that had “lost” Lydia for those ten months kept publicity about Alice’s unusual birth to a minimum. Family friends were permitted to assume that Lydia had been impregnated in a more conventional fashion and any busybody interested in scandal found little material.
Only Lydia knew how much she missed Wolfer Martin D’Ambry. He had told her that he could not visit her in Verite, but that when she returned to Virtu he would find her. However, although she had been attending classes in a virtual campus for almost two terms now and had gone away on a virtual weekend with her friend, Gwen, and her younger sister, Cindy, she had not seen him, nor had there been any messages. For now, she was content to wait and hope.
But a year is a long time to wait, especially when you are just nineteen. Although Lydia tried hard to believe that Ambry would find her again, her ability to hope was worn very thin.
* * *
As young Donnerjack grew in size and mobility, the only thing that puzzled Dack was that occasionally the boy came back with a leaf or a stick in his hand. He had no idea where they came from, for he knew there was no way of breaking the physical boundary between the worlds. At first, he did not think much about it, being able to rationalize answers on each occasion. Later, though, considering that Donnerjack had been one of the great authorities on Virtu and that much of his final work had been secret, he wondered whether the man might have developed some limited direct access to Virtu via the Great Stage.
Nightmare visions plagued him then. He knew that Donnerjack had wanted his son to play on the Stage. Bu
t if he could break the interface and wander off into Virtu, the Stage meantime undergoing several phase shifts, the boy could become hopelessly lost in that other world. It was a terrible dilemma. And, of course, the boy had not done so…
Dack resolved to keep him under surveillance for a time. Beginning the next day, therefore, he joined him on the Stage, staying as far away from him as he could while still keeping him in sight. Dack stood or crouched stock-still most of the time, and when he had to move it was always with great deliberation.
The boy hummed little snatches of song as he toddled or crawled from place to place. Some of these Dack recognized, others he did not. After a time, a mainly rocky scene shifted to a meadowlike one and young Donnerjack made his way into it, offstage.
Moving like a silver and bronze ghost, Dack followed, able to take his time as the boy wandered back and forth and occasionally paused for long stretches to watch a flower, bird, or some crawling denizen of the place.
Dack drew nearer, then grew immobile again. The boy began humming, then singing:
Butterfly, butterfly. Flutterby, flutterby. Come to me, come to me. I’m lonely todee.
He sang it over and over, and after a time the large black insect seemed to emerge from a hole in a nearby tree. It stitched the air in young Donnerjack’s direction, darting about his head almost playfully. Finally, it settled on a nearby twig and seemed to regard him through jewel-like eyes.
“Hi, Al—Ali—” the boy addressed it.
“Alioth,” a small voice corrected him, and Back immediately adjusted his hearing to accommodate it.
“Alioth,” the boy repeated. “Pretty flutterby!”
There followed the tiniest of laughs, then, “Thank you, John. You know how to make an old butterfly feel good.”
The boy laughed himself then. He was not sure why, but Alioth had indicated that something was funny.
“People did not always laugh at the black butterfly,” the insect stated. “Not in the dawn days when my wings filled half the heavens and there was a sound like thunder when I flapped them.”
“Why?” the boy asked.
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